Big Bash kicks goals past A-League in TV ratings

THE Big Bash may have oversold its expectations, but the Twenty20 tournament is flogging its summer rival, soccer's A-League.

While Big Bash crowds were down on optimistic predictions during the opening weekend, they more than doubled A-League crowds from fewer matches.

And the total Big Bash audience in Fox Sports for the four matches across Friday, Saturday and Sunday topped more than one million -- three times what the A-League drew across five games.

However, new Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop claimed the two competitions were not "an apples-to-apples comparison".

"It (Big Bash) is a six-week modified format game versus a full-fledged, six-month national competition," Gallop told The Daily Telegraph last night.

"Our crowds and viewership are at an all time high. Football is very healthy.

"We have a lot to look forward to around the Socceroos World Cup qualifiers and a visit by the most famous football club in the world, Manchester United."

But Big Bash senior manager Anthony Everard claimed that the tournament was outgunning its competitors.

"While we're focused on our own backyard there is some overlap between the two (competitions)," Everard said.

"We do play in the same cities, we play at similar times of the day, we share the same broadcaster.

"We'll back our own produce in the Big Bash. Our numbers certainly hold up very, very well not only in relation to the A-League, but also some of the other sports.

"Whether it's average attendances or tv ratings we’re pretty comfortable where we sit in the pecking order for a league that is effectively a year and four games old.

"Averaging 250,000 viewers over the weekend is still an exceptionally strong result and our average attendees across the four games (16,261) is slightly ahead of where we were in the first four games last year."

The Big Bash will be enhanced by the arrival this week of West Indian stars Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Kemar Roach.

The arrival of Gayle should make an enormous difference to a non-descript Sydney Thunder.

Only twice in its opening nine rounds has the A-League managed to attract half a million viewers on Fox Sports, half the number who watched the Big Bash last weekend, and the last two A-League rounds have been under 350,000.

The signing of Italian legend Alessandro Del Piero has had an enormous impact on Sydney FC crowds, lifting them from an average of under 12,000 last season to almost 21,000 this season.

However, Melbourne Victory maintains the best average this season, up from 19,000 to almost 24,000.

Which no doubt explains why A-League average crowds have risen by 2000 to almost 13,000 this summer when four of the 10 A-League clubs attract under 10,000 a game.

The best of the four Big Bash crowds was the 23,589 by the Renegades in the Melbourne derby against the Stars led by Shane Warne -- the Del Piero of the BBL.

Early predictions had been for a crowd of 30,000, which was clearly short of the mark, but Warne still managed to pull in the viewers.

The game averaged 344,000 on Fox Sports, putting it into the upper echelon of most watched sports programs.

Indeed, the fifth-highest rating program of all-time on pay television was the 478,000 who watched Warne play his first Big Bash game last season, almost five years after retiring from Test cricket.

The lowest rating Big Bash game on the weekend was the late match played in Perth between the Scorchers and the Adelaide Strikers, which averaged 206,000.

This is way above anything the A League has managed so far this year.

The best was a Del Piero-inspired 156,000 when Sydney FC played Newcastle in Round 2 and 155,000 watched marquee clubs Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory in Round 6.

Last weekend’s real Big Bash disappointment was the 15,279 the Sixers attracted for the Sydney derby against the Thunder at the SCG when 30,000 had been predicted.

But even that crowd is beaten by the averages of just three A-League clubs -- Sydney FC, Victory and the Brisbane Roar’s 15,679.

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